Councillors begin ranking of municipal services

GUELPH — Water supply and distribution is a critical municipal service and the city is well-positioned to continue doing a good job of it.

Christmas tree collection, on the other hand, is not an important service, which is just as well since the city seems to be doing a poor job of it anyway.

Or at least that’s what city councillors think.

Those are two of the outcomes of a ranking of municipal services by councillors, the results of which were unveiled Wednesday night during city council’s second strategic planning workshop.

Councillors were recently asked to rank 75 city services according to the perceived importance of each service and the perceived ability of the city to continue delivering each one.

The city has launched a review process which will eventually see each of the more than 300 services it provides coming under a microscope, with an eye to finding efficiencies and ensuring the services worth offering are best delivered by the city.

Mayor Karen Farbridge began Wednesday’s session by conceding the process is a challenging one.

“Inherent in the process is conflict and difference of opinion,” Farbridge said. “It’s uncomfortable, but that’s OK.”

The mayor said council will have to decide how best to undertake a review of the remaining 225 or so services, suggesting that if councillors reviewed 75 each year they would get through them all by the end of their four-year term.

But while some councillors seemed intent to dive into the first 75 right away, consultant Chris Bart said the next step will see the city’s senior management team poring over the results before the matter comes back to council.

Bart said some councillors might have ranked a service low because they do not have a good understanding of it, and it will be up to staff to ensure if that is the case that that “knowledge gap” is addressed before council makes any decision on a particular service.

“You’re way ahead of every other municipal council in the country because you have taken the temperature, the pulse, of councillors with respect to these services,” Bart said of the first 75. “This won’t happen all at once overnight.”

After the meeting, Farbridge said she was not surprised councillors were miles apart on their ranking of some services, adding it is good to identify those so councillors on both sides can get a better understanding of each other’s positions.

“There are always elephants in the room … so let’s sort out which ones they are so we can focus on those,” the mayor said.

Farbridge noted it was good to see councillors on the same page as the community on some issues.

The city’s visitor information centre and tourism marketing, for example, was ranked 67th of the 75 services, with most councillors agreeing it is not a critical municipal service and the city is not well-positioned to offer it.

That mirrors the results of the city’s Prosperity 2020 community consultation, which suggested visitor services might best be moved to an outside service provider.

“There’s some nice alignment between Prosperity 2020, which was a community process, and the direction council seems to believe we should be moving in,” the mayor said.